


the time flies

by dreamtiwasanarchitect



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Bonding, Clubbing, Ethics, Gen, Museums, Nightmares, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Friendship, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Religious Discussion, Shopping, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27337252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamtiwasanarchitect/pseuds/dreamtiwasanarchitect
Summary: The thing was, Nile absolutely trusted Nicky with her life. He was ride or die. He’d made her feel safe and welcome from the night they met.He also made her feel intensely awkward, because she had no idea how to interact with him.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 128
Kudos: 467





	1. don't need no help

**Author's Note:**

> I Can't Believe It's Not Porn!
> 
> There are many great takes on Nicky & Nile bonding but I needed more, especially in these trying times. Don't worry—back to regularly scheduled smut soon.

They had decided as a team to send Andy and Joe to handle the cartel job in Belize while she and Nicky stayed in Zurich, but as Nile watched the others throwing bags into the truck in of the rental car, she wondered if it was too late to change the plan.

While Nicky and Andy said their goodbyes, Joe wrapped Nile in his usual bear hug. “Take care of Nicky for me, yeah?” he grinned.

“Uh, yeah, of course,” Nile said. She knew Joe was joking, but the idea of her “taking care” of a thousand-year-old man was still completely nuts.

Joe and Andy swapped places, and the other woman pulled Nile into a brief hug. Over Andy’s shoulder, she saw Joe and Nicky pressed in an embrace, foreheads touching. She looked back to Andy when they start to kiss.

“See you soon, kid,” Andy said, and that was objectively true. If all went to plan—and Copley had sworn up and down it would, as Nicky and Joe glared and Andy cleaned her gun—they’d be back in about a week.

Still, Nile stood next to Nicky watching them drive away until the car was out of view. Nicky smiled and touched her shoulder, then went back into the apartment. 

———

Nile spent the rest of the afternoon at loose ends in her and Andy’s room. Not to avoid Nicky, just to chill. 

She re-watched a few episodes of the _The Office_ on her phone, creeped on a few old friends on Instagram, and cleaned Andy’s side of the room because it was gross. While she tried and failed to doze off for a nap, she had to admit that she was, in fact, avoiding Nicky.

The thing was, Nile absolutely trusted Nicky with her life. He was ride or die. He’d made her feel safe and welcome from the night they met. 

He also made her feel intensely awkward, because she had no idea how to interact with him. 

She and Andy had the kind of connection that was automatically forged when someone kidnapped you from your place of work and shot you in the head. Joe was naturally chatty and they quickly identified their shared interests (it was obvious no one else in the immortal boat had any kind of taste of sense of aesthetic). 

But she and Nicky still hadn’t spent any significant amount of time alone together, and when they were with Joe and Andy, those two tended to suck up most of the air in a room. 

And now it was just the two of them for the next seven-ish days. 

She guessed she couldn’t hide forever, so she stepped out into the living area. Nicky was reading on the dusty couch, legs curled underneath him, one elbow on the armrest. He smiled up at her, and she felt like an asshole for hiding away all afternoon. 

“What would you like for dinner tonight?” he asked. 

“Um, whatever. What do we have?”

“Nothing. But I can go to the store, or we can go somewhere.”

Nicky always did the majority of the cooking for group meals, with Joe as his sous chef. They’d taught Nile a few things too, so she helped when she was around. Andy, Joe had told her, was banned from the kitchen after the grease fire incident of 1889.

Maybe he would appreciate a break? 

“Wanna go out?” 

“That sounds nice.” He actually didn’t sound like he really had an opinion, but she’d take his word for it. “Do you have somewhere in mind?” 

“Not really. Anywhere you’ve been before that might still be around?”

Nicky shot her another little smile. “Ah, the last time we were in Zurich was…1971, I think?” 

Shoulda figured. “That’s cool, I’ll look on Yelp.” Nile made her way around the couch and sat down in the equally ancient armchair. Shit. Was that weird? Should she have just sat next to him? She glanced over to Nicky, but he didn’t look put off.

She turned her attention to her phone and, after five minutes of research, ran her first choice by Nicky, who said it sounded lovely. It was only 4:30, so she expected him to return to his book, but watched her for another minute. 

Nicky was still and unmoving in the way that he was when lining up a shot. Weirdly (and possibly disturbingly), Nile thought nothing of it in that situation, but with that level of intense focus directed at her, she felt all wrong-footed. 

“It is early,” he said, “but perhaps a drink before dinner?” 

She was a little taken aback by the suggestion, but it beat sitting around the apartment wondering what to do with herself. “Yeah, sounds good. I’m gonna go change and then we can head?” 

“Yes, whenever you are ready.”

Nile swapped her leggings and tee for jeans and a sweater. She slipped on boots and a beanie and, on a whim, put on some mascara and lipstick. Zurich was full of artfully disheveled people her age, and even though the chances of a hook-up were pretty low given all the circumstances, she hadn’t yet hit the “no more fucks left to give” stage of immortality. 

When she re-emerged, Nicky marked his place and stood. He was wearing a sweater that was probably Joe’s, so his look passed for “hipster wearing grandpa’s clothes” instead of the usual “sad suburban dad.”

He took their coats from the hook and handed Nile hers. “Oh,” she realized as he locked the door behind them, “do we need to figure out where we’re heading?”

“No need,” Nicky told her. “I have a general idea.” 

———

Nicky led them into what looked like the European version of a diner. He pulled out her chair and ordered for both of them, and Nile felt like she was on the weirdest date of her life.

“What’d you order us?”

“Glühwein,” Nicky said, and nodded to the sign on one of the windows. “It's a hot, spiced wine.”

“Cool.” The server came back with two steaming mugs. 

“Smells boozy,” Nile said. 

Nicky smiled his little half-smile and took a sip of his own. “Not too hot,” he told her.

She took a drink, trying to ignore the fumes that smelled like pure alcohol. Luckily, the taste was all citrus and spice. “It’s pretty good.”

“I’m glad you like it.” 

If Joe were there, she’d be treated to a complete history of the beverage. If she were with Andy, she’d be pressured to chug it down so they could move on to the next thing.

Nicky just watched her. Nile took another drink and tried to think of any topic of discussion, but Nicky was almost a thousand years old and he acted like it. She had no idea what she could say that would be interesting to him. _Hey, you heard the new Rico Nasty song?_ probably wasn’t gonna result in a prolonged conversation. 

He leaned forward a little, elbows on the table. “How are you doing, Nile?”

The question caught her completely off-guard. 

“Um, I’m fine.”

“I was not asking about right now,” Nicky said. His voice was gentle. “I meant how has it been for you.”

Nile blinks and the last eight months flash before her eyes. They spent the first month after London “off the grid” in a tiny village in north Vietnam, holed up in one of Andy’s caves that was trying to pass for an actual dwelling. They basically lived on top of each other, venturing out for thirty-five cent pho and Joe telling stories to pass the time. 

Once Andy was satisfied any heat had died down, they stayed at one of Joe and Nicky’s places in Killarney, which was a big upgrade in terms of living conditions, since the little house had actual rooms. The three months they spent there also lacked any real agenda, but at least there was a TV. 

Then they were on the move again. This time they ended up in Nebraska, of all places, on a farm that Joe and Nicky, honest-to-God, purchased as part of the Homestead Act. Nebraska was so close to, and yet so far from Chicago that it was hard for Nile to think about. She wanted to cry every time she someone asked if she wanted a pop. 

But Nebraska had wide open spaces and lax gun laws, so instead of watching TV, Nile spent most of her days getting a crash course in Mercenary 101. Between the three of them, Nile learned how to disassemble every firearm known to man in less than thirty seconds, drop someone twice her weight, and cut a person’s head clean off with five different medieval weapons. (She also learned the tipping etiquette in twenty different countries.) 

After nearly four months of being put through her paces, everyone deemed Nile’s physical training up to snuff, and they headed to Zurich to rendezvous with Copley.

Before she deployed, Nile had never traveled to another country. Now she’d been to five in less than a year. It was…a lot.

Nicky was still watching her.

“I mean. I don’t know. I haven’t had a lot of time to, you know, process?” She took another drink. “It was hard being back in the States,” she admitted.

“I wondered.” 

“It felt like home, but…not quite.”

“I understand,” Nicky said softly. “Italy feels much the same for me.” 

“Really? Still?”

“Yes, of course. Italy was not always Italy, but the memory of what it was before remains.” He smiled wryly.

“Think it’s the same for the others?”

“For Joe, yes. I cannot be sure about Andy. She has lived much longer than us, and she despises nostalgia.” 

The mention of Andy made her think about something else, but she wasn’t sure if it was too personal. 

Nicky must have been able to see there was something else on her mind. “You can ask me anything, Nile.”

She smiled, embarrassed, then took a deep breath. “Andy told me she can’t remember anything about her mom. Or sisters. Can you?”

Nicky looked thoughtful. “My mother’s name was Contessina. I remember we resembled each other. I had an older brother, Luzio—he was the head of our household after my father died when I was young.” He hesitated. “I cannot recall much else.”

“And you don’t…you don’t really think about them?”

His face was regretful, like he wanted the truth to be something other than what we was about to tell her. “No. But things were different then—when I left home, I already knew I likely would not see them again.” 

Nile nodded, processing. 

Nicky touched her hand. “It’s not wrong to mourn your family, Nile. They will always be a part of you. Even if you forget their names or their faces, you will never forget that you loved them.”

Her eyes started to burn, and she had to look down.

“And, Nile—I don’t suggest we will ever replace what you have lost. But. We are your family now, too.” He squeezed her hand, then sat back.

When she was (semi) confident she wouldn’t start making a scene, she looked back up at him. He looked so earnest. 

Nile cleared her throat. “Thanks, Nicky. I really…” she floundered, looking for the right words. “I guess I really don’t know what to say, but it…it means a lot, to me.”

“I understand.” Then Nicky smiled as widely as she’d ever seen, and winked. “We cannot all be like Joe.” 

Then she laughed, and it felt like one of the layers of icy awkwardness she’d been feeling since Andy and Joe left had melted away. 

“Hey,” she said, seized with inspiration. “Are you attached to going out to eat?”

“Not at all.” 

“Want to go to the store and get something to cook? I have an idea.” 

———

Back at the apartment, they unpacked their groceries. Nicky had picked up the usual staples while Nile searched for more specific ingredients.

Together, they made her mom’s baked mac and cheese and ate it directly from the pan.

Several bites in, Nile felt a lump rising in her throat. She took another forkful and her eyes burned.

“Nile?” Nicky asked when she was openly weeping over their dinner.

She put her fork down and pressed her palms against her eyes. “Sorry, sorry. Shit.” 

Nicky came around to kneel beside her chair. He drew her into his arm and she started crying big, gasping sobs. 

He stroked her hair, rubbed her back. She repaid him by snotting all over his sweater.

“Sorry, this is really embarrassing,” she croaked into his chest. 

“Grief is normal. You have no reason to be ashamed.” 

Once she got herself under control, they packaged up the leftovers and settled on the couch. The apartment didn’t have a TV, but Nile propped the communal tablet (courtesy of Copley) up on the battered coffee table. 

“What do you wanna watch?”

Nicky shrugged. “Whatever you like.”

“Come on, give me something. What have you seen? What did you like?”

Nicky hummed. “The last one I saw was…the one about the pregnant girl?”

“Um. Gonna need a few more details.”

He huffed a breath. “She was young? And she let an older couple adopt the baby?”

“Okay, how long ago was this?” 

“Hm. Five, ten years ago?”

How the hell was she supposed to—“Wait. _Juno_?” 

“Perhaps?” 

She pulled up the trailer.

“Yes!” Nicky beamed at her. “It was this one.”

“And you liked it?”

He shrugged. “Joe did. I thought it was all right.”

Nile felt hysterical. “Okay, so there’s a new movie with Issa Rae I wanna see. It’s a romantic comedy. That sound good?”

“I like romance and comedy,” Nicky told her, squishing back into the couch. 

When the movie finished, Nicky assured her he liked it very much, though Nile had no idea if he was being sincere or just trying to validate her choice. (For the record—she thought it was good, but not great.)

With Nicky’s blessing, she put on _The Office_. 


	2. never been nowhere

Nile woke with a painful crick in her neck that started to lessen the minute she sat up. Food smells were coming from the kitchen.

The tablet was laying flat on the coffee table, and she had a blanket tucked around her. Shit, she didn’t even remember falling asleep. 

She checked her phone. It was after nine, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept past seven-thirty. She rubbed her eyes and she could feel what little mascara had survived her breakdown flaking off.

“Good morning,” Nicky said when she joined him in the kitchen. He ladled out a pancake. “Chocolate chips? Blueberries?”

“Blueberries are great.”

He nodded and sprinkled a few in. “Did you sleep all right on the couch? I though to wake you, but you seemed content.”

“Yeah, I slept like a rock,” she admitted. 

“Good.” He glanced up at her. “Do you have any interest in getting out today? Seeing more of the country?”

Even though she’d followed these people across the world and back, she’d done considerably little sight-seeing. Which was probably fine in Nebraska, but it was kind of disappointing to be confined to a five-mile radius elsewhere. 

“That would be awesome,” she told him. “Have something specific in mind?”

Nicky seemed to consider it. “Perhaps a trip to Bern? It is an hour by train.”

“Cool. What’s there to do in Bern?”

“There is the Old Town, which has many interesting buildings that date back to the 13th century,” Nicky said, then paused. “There is also an art museum, perhaps the one Joe would not take you to.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, the Paul Klee museum. Joe will be cross that we went, but it’s a very nice museum.”

“Wait, really? What’s Joe’s beef with Klee? I thought he was into expressionism.”

“Yes, but he and Klee got into at Bauhaus in the 20s,” Nicky said. “And he has held a bit of a grudge.

“Oh my God. For real? What’d they fight about?”

To her surprise, Nicky smirked. “Joe’s choice of subject.”

Nile felt like she was missing the joke. Nicky raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh, what, he thought Joe should paint someone besides you?” she teased.

“No, he thought Joe should paint something less provocative,” Nicky said, and grinned when she blushed. 

———

After one too many pancakes, Nile rushed to get ready so they could make the next train. Nicky gave her the window seat, and she spent the ride to Bern watching beautiful countryside fly by.

They disembarked at city center, and, as advertised, everything was very old. Nicky and Nile strolled around for an hour, Nicky following her lead. When they passed one of the pretzel chains she’d seen everywhere, she ducked in and came back out with a pretzel the size of her head. 

“Want some?” Nile asked, waving it at Nicky. He nodded and she made to tear him off a piece, but he just leaned in and took a a bite. 

“Delicious,” he said, still chewing, and winked at her. She let out a startled laugh and they kept walking. 

“Can we gain weight?” Nile wondered out loud.

“We can, just as we can starve to death,” Nicky told her. “But it is difficult.” He did a quick scan for intrusive ears. “Our bodies reset themselves when we come back. And even if we do not die, our lifestyle is usually not conducive to filling out much.” 

“That kinda slaps,” she said. Nicky looked a little confused, so she added, “I mean, that it’s cool.”

“Infinite time, infinite pretzels,” he said, smiling. 

They took the bus to the Klee museum. The architecture of the building alone was something to see. Nicky trailed behind her the whole visit. He didn’t look that interested in the art, but he seemed happy enough to let her enjoy the experience. Nile figured centuries with Joe had honed his patience for this kind of thing.

On the bus ride back to the train station, Nile noticed one of the stop names. “Bärenpark,” she said. “Does that mean…”

“Bear park, yes.”

What the fuck. “Have you been? Is it cool?”  
“Hm. The last time I saw it, it was just a pit of bears.” What the actual fuck. And people thought America was weird. 

“I believe they’ve changed it somewhat recently,” Nicky continued. “To be more humane for the bears,” he added. 

“Can we check it out?”

Nicky looked bemused by her enthusiasm. “Of course.”

So they stopped at the bear park, where to Nile’s disappointment, there were no bears to be found. 

“Hibernating,” Nicky said while she peered around the enclosure.

“Oh. Duh. Winter. Shoulda figured.”

He shrugged. “I half-expected some new innovation to keep them on display.” 

“Sucks for us, but it’s probably better for the bears.”

“Probably so.” 

Bears or no, the park is was pretty. Nile took it in, hands shoved in her coat pockets.

“All right,” she said after a few minutes. “Ready if you are.”

Nicky offered her his arm, and they walked back to the bus stop. 

———

They got home and, since she wasn’t about to sleep in jeans again, Nile immediately threw on sweats. Nicky reheated the previous night’s mac and cheese and they ate on the couch with _Hustlers_ playing on the tablet. 

“Did you like that better or worse than the one we watched last night?” Nile asked when the movie was over.

Nicky considered it. “They were very different. But I think I liked it better.” 

“Same.” 

“In a more just world, those women would not have gone to jail,” Nick said. 

“I mean, they did drug those guys.” 

Nicky just shrugged. “Their method of stealing was more straightforward, but no more immoral than the methods of the men they targeted.”

“Yeah, I s’pose,” Nile said. She hadn’t anticipated Nicky being so firmly team stripper, but she wasn’t necessarily mad about it. “Wanna watch another one?”  
“Let’s.”

Nicky cleaned up the dishes and made them tea while Nile scrolled Netflix. She queued up _Marriage Story_ and accepted half the blanket when Nicky offered it to her. 

Nile thought the movie was kind of boring, but Nicky seemed to be pretty into it, so she didn’t suggest switching to something else. She laid her head on one of the armrests and stretched out a little. 

One of her feet nudged against Nicky by accident. “Oops, sorry,” she said, lifting her head up to look at him. 

Nicky looked over and gave her a quick smile. “You can put them on me if you like.” He gave her foot a pat and turned back to the movie, where Adam Driver was screaming at ScarJo. 

Tentatively, she straightened both legs and rested her feet on top of Nicky’s thigh. He set a hand on her ankles and she realized how little she’d been touched since everything went down. Sure, she got hugs from Joe every so often, and sometimes when she and Andy shared a bed she ended up getting stray limbs thrown over her, but so far, immortal life had been a little lacking in cuddling. It felt nice. 

The movie ended, and it turned out Nicky had Opinions about _Marriage Story_. 

“What an appallingly bleak film. So painfully superficial! I do not believe they were ever in love in the first place.”

Nile tried not to let on how funny she was finding Nicky’s impassioned rant. “Why not?”

“If they were in love, how could something as immaterial as where they live cause such a rift?”

She resisted pointing out that “where to live” was not immaterial to couples who only got to spend one lifetime together. “Okay, so no more Noah Baumbach,” she joked. 

“Perhaps his other work is better. I cannot imagine how it would be worse.”

Nile gave up trying not to laugh. “A scathing review. All right. I’m gonna head to bed so I don’t pass out here again.” She swung her legs off Nicky’s lap and sat up.

“Good night,” he said. “Sleep well.” 

———

Nicky must have jinxed it, because Nile woke with a jolt, sweating. Already the details of the nightmare were fading—it was her mom and brother, watching as a man in a lab coat cut her heart out and she screamed for help—but the emotion wasn’t.

After a few moments of debate, she got up and knocked on Nicky’s door. She heard a bed creak, then the door opened. Nicky’s hair was poking up at weird angles, but he looked otherwise alert. 

“Nile? What’s happened?”

Nile suddenly felt very stupid. “I, uh, had a bad dream,” she admitted.

“Was it…”

She shook her head. “No, it was my family. It…the details aren’t important. It just freaked me out, is all.”

Nicky took a step back, making space. “Do you want to come in?” 

“Uh, sure,” she said, not entirely clear on what was happening. 

Nicky got into the far side of the bed and lifted up the covers. 

Sharing a bed with Andy was one thing, but snuggling up to her male…coworker? Teammate? Pseudo-sibling? felt kind of weird. Still, she supposed Andy was more likely to get handsy with her than Nicky.

So she crawled in next to him, careful to leave room for Jesus. 

Nile didn’t know what possessed her to say it, not to Nicky of all people, but the words came anyway. “I keep thinking about Booker.” Then she stared up at the ceiling, braced for Nicky’s response.

“What about?” His tone was neutral, which she decided to view as encouraging.

“Just…I know he dreams about…about her, too. And probably still his family. And now he’s totally alone for like, a really long time.” 

Maybe, she thought, that was another reason she’d felt so unsettled around Nicky—the way he’d insisted on a century of solitude for Booker, all restrained anger and icy vibes. 

Nicky was quiet, then said, “I worry about him, too.” 

She let out a shaky breath.“But,” Nicky said, still softly, “he hurt us very badly, Nile. I know that he is sorry. But that doesn’t mean we can forgive him.” Another pause. “Joe is my heart, my ever. Andy is my family, as are you. He put us all in danger. And we cannot do what we do if we do not trust each other. I need time to feel…to feel safe around him again.” 

Nile’s heart clenched. In the darkness, she felt for Nicky’s hand and squeezed when she found it. “I get it.” 

He squeezed back. 


	3. got up and changed my situation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What a terrible time to be alive! Hopefully this sparks some joy :) 
> 
> Warning for recreational drug use in this chapter! There is also some brief Nile/OMC.

By the time Nile woke up, Nicky was gone—cooking breakfast by the smell of it. She puttered out of the room to find him whisking something on the stove. 

“Morning. Is that gravy?”

He nodded. “Biscuits are in the oven. Mushrooms are okay?”

“Yep. Anything I can do to help?”

“I haven’t started coffee yet.”

“On it.” She grabbed the can of grounds and peered in. “Looks like we’re gonna be out after this.”

“We can pick more up later,” Nicky said easily.

The ancient coffeemaker put up a fight, but Nile prodded it into submission eventually. 

Like everything Nicky made, the biscuits and gravy were delicious. They ate their food and sipped their coffee in silence. It felt companionable instead of uncomfortable.

Still, something nagged at Nile.

“Hey Nicky?”

He looked at her attentively over his mug.

“About last night. What I said about—about Booker. I just, I mean, I hope I didn’t like, invalidate your feelings. About what happened. I know it was really serious.” 

Nicky’s smile was a little sad. “Thank you, Nile. I was not upset—we have a history with Booker that you do not, fears that you do not. I know you respect our feelings.” 

He paused. “And, you are not wrong to be concerned for him. He is still our family.” Nicky didn’t sound particularly happy about that, but he continued: “And…”

“And?”

“If it will make you feel better, you could reach out to him.” 

“Uh. Really?” It was no secret Andy had told Copley to keep in touch with Booker, but as far as she knew, no one else was talking to him. “That’s like…allowed? 

Nicky nodded. “He is not to contact us. But if you like, you may try to contact him. Eventually, I am sure Andy and Joe will, too, before a hundred years pass.” 

Nile chewed on that. She didn’t miss that Nicky had excluded himself from the “talking to Booker” list. 

“Okay. That’s…I’ll think about it,” Nile said. “If you guys are all cool with it.”

“Nile,” Nicky said with a smile, “you are still your own person. As long as you are considering our safety, you can do whatever you like.”

Nile knew that, rationally, but she hadn’t really been looking at it that way—because she hadn’t really been living like it. The others included her in their conversations about where to go and what to do, but she’d never had much to say. After all, everyone else had about nine hundred years on her. What did she know?

She realized she had tried so hard not to be a problem that she’d basically been on autopilot for the past eight months. Maybe that was why it hadn’t felt entirely real. 

“Nile?” Nicky prompted. 

“Um, sorry, just had kind of an epiphany,” she said. 

“A good one?”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “Yeah, I think so.”

He smiled and went to pour himself more coffee.

———

They had a quiet morning. Nicky spent it with his nose buried in his book while Nile watched more Netflix with her earbuds in, legs on Nicky’s lap. 

As they assembled peanut butter sandwiches for a quick lunch, Nicky asked if she wanted to do anything else in the city. 

“Yeah, but I’m not sure what.”

“We could walk to Bahnhofstrasse,” he said. “It is the main downtown street, mostly shopping.” 

That perked Nile up. She hadn’t gone shopping for herself before the States, and her options in the rural Midwest had been…Walmart. Joe had picked up some good pieces for her in London, but she intentionally left some of them Killarney, and some of the others were looking worse for wear after their stint in the cave in Sìn Hồ. 

“Let’s do it.” 

Dior, Gucci, and Prada had been a little out of the price range for Nile Freeman, Marine. Not so much for Nile Freeman, immortal. She didn’t know exactly how much money the others had between them, but she knew it was more than she’d ever seen in her life, times a thousand. 

Even the amount Joe pressed on her before he and Andy left felt like a staggering amount. “Nicky is bad with money,” Joe had told her. “So I am going to let you handle it, if that’s all right with you.”

That left her walking around one of the world’s most expensive shopping avenues with four different bank cards with triple-digit balances and several thousand Euro. 

Outside Burberry, Nile paused. 

“Do you want to go in?” Hand in his pocket, Nicky gestured toward the door.

“I’m sort of having an ethical dilemma,” she admitted.

He tilted his head in question. 

“I mean, there are people starving in…well, everywhere. And I’ve noticed we sort of burn through clothing. Is it really okay to buy a three-thousand-dollar piece of clothing?”

Nicky looked very fond. “Would you like a short answer, or a thoughtful answer?”

“Short now, thoughtful later?” The trench in the window was almost mocking her.

“I think it would be wrong for us to exclusively purchase expensive clothing. But you know that it is not always easy to live as we do. So I think it’s okay to do something that makes you happy. Including buying an obscenely priced coat.” 

Nile took that in. “Cool,” she said, and pulled the door open.

She bought the trench, then drug Nicky with her to Prada. 

Looking over at the men’s section, she said, “Hey Nicky.”

He followed her gaze and looked wary. “Yes?”

“How would you feel about trying on some new jeans?”

“Ah, Nile…”

“It would make me happy,” she said, grinning.

Nicky sighed. “Evil girl.” But he tried them on, and they were about ten steps up from the dad jeans he’d worn into the store, which were a crime against God. The shop assistant shamelessly stared at Nicky’s ass when he turned for Nile.

“This is wasted on me,” he said as they checked out. 

Nile smirked at him. “Think of it as a present for Joe.”

Nicky laughed then, his face lighting up. He even snorted a little, which made Nile laugh, too.

“Should we get something for Joe?” Nicky wondered as they left the store. 

“Sure. I bet he’s an Armani guy.” 

Nile helped him pick out a printed, long sleeve shirt with a knit collar. She wasn’t entirely sure they had nailed Joe’s style, but she knew once they told him they picked it out, Joe would love it anyway. 

She rounded out her haul with a few more (slightly more reasonably priced) pieces from Zara. Nicky insisted on carrying most of the bags on their walk home. With all their shopping sprawling across the living room floor, the amount of money she’d just burned through sunk in.

Nile started laughing.

“What is it?”

“It’s just…” It got funnier when she tried to explain. “Like. Six months ago we were living in a literal cave? And now there’s like, ten-thousand dollars of clothes here.” 

Nicky looked at her like he didn’t quite get the joke. She guessed, for him, stranger things had probably happened.

———

High off her afternoon shopping spree, Nile suggested they try going out to eat again. Nicky agreed easily, but Nile saw that her initial restaurant pick wouldn’t open again until the next night.

Scrolling through Yelp once more, someplace new caught her eye.

“Hey Nicky,” she said, “this restaurant’s supposed to be the world’s oldest vegetarian place. It’s been open since the late 1800s.”

“Hm, well, I doubt that first bit, but they may not know any better. I am sure it is very good, though,” he added benevolently. 

Nile called and handed off the phone to Nicky to make them a hasty reservation.

It snowed a little on the walk to Hiltl, but it wasn’t freezing.

“Do you like the cold?” Nile asked.

“I do not mind it,” Nick said. “Joe despises it, though. So we stay where it’s warm when we can.” He looked over at her. “Chicago is very cold in the winters, if I remember correctly?”

“Yep. Sub-zero days, baby.” Then a question she’d never thought to ask occurred to her. “Have y’all been?”

“Just Joe and I,” he said. 

“How long ago?”

“The late 80s—1980s,” he added with a little smile.

“What’d you get up to there?” 

Nicky’s smile disappeared. “I was working in some hospitals. The AIDS crisis. Joe did a lot of volunteering, too.” 

“Oh. Shit.” What could she say to that? 

He seemed to realize she didn’t have a good response. “It was hard to see. But we helped as much as we could.” Nicky looked at her. “It is not all bullets and bombs, what we do.” 

———

The restaurant was huge and the food was delicious. They split two bottles of wine, and as they waited for the check, Nicky asked if she wanted to do anything else.

“I dunno, hit some clubs, maybe,” she joked. She was feeling a little tipsy. 

“All right,” Nicky said. 

“Oh, you—I was kinda kidding.”

“Why? You don’t like to dance?”

“No I mean, I don’t know, I like to dance as much as the next person.” She hadn’t thought it was really Nicky’s scene, but it felt rude to say it. 

He turned down her offer to find them a place, so they paid and headed out into the street.

They didn’t seem to be wandering aimlessly. 

“Do you know where we’re going?”

“Not specifically, but I have an idea.” Nicky glanced at her and smiled. “You just get a sense for these things. Enough years, enough places.”

Nile accepted the explanation with a nod, and a few minutes later they stopped outside a building pulsing with house music. 

The air inside the club was so thick with smoke that Nile was grateful for her regenerating lungs. Nicky took her coat and hung it underneath his.

“Shall we?” he yelled in her ear. 

She followed Nicky out to the floor and was a little shook when she saw that he could _dance_.

A guy came up behind Nile and wasted no time getting handsy. Nicky looked from the dude’s hand on her ass to her expression, and immediately pulled her in. 

The other man took a look at Nicky’s face and immediately fucked off. “Thanks,” she shouted.

Nicky gave her a tight nod. He was still tracking the guy through the crowd. 

A few songs later, they wove their way over to the bar. Nicky handed Nile her rum and coke while he sipped his gin and tonic. 

Another man approached them, but this one stepped directly in to Nicky’s space. Nile watched as Nicky leaned in to listen, then shook his head and said something in German she couldn’t hear or understand. By the put-out look on his face, the guy had just got shot down.

They had set their empty drinks back down on the bar and turned back to the dance floor when Nile felt a tap on her shoulder. The guy began speaking to her in rapid German. She shook her head and glanced over to Nicky, who stepped in to take over.

The two had a quick exchange, then Nicky turned back to her.

“Would you like some ecstasy?” 

“Um. _What_.” 

“He is trying to sell us some ecstasy. Would you like some?” 

“Uh, I mean…would _you?_ ”

Nicky inclined his head. “Mm, I think so, yes.” Like someone had offered him fucking tea and biscuits. “Unless you would rather I not?” 

“No, I mean, you do you,” Nile said. 

“Would you care to join?” 

She hesitated. “I’ve never taken it before. Is it, like…safe to get at a club like this?”

Nicky’s mouth twitched. “It is for us.”

And what was the worst thing that could happen? She’d overdose and die…and then come back to life. 

“Okay, fuck it,” Nile told him. “I’m in.” 

They exchanged twenty Euro for two pills. Nile felt like she was about to get turnt with her granddad.

“Cheers,” she said, and swallowed her pill. 

Thirty-some minutes later, Nile felt amazing. She could dance all night. She and Nicky spun around in each other’s orbit, occasionally brushing limbs, the sensation sending a shock down Nile’s neck.

A new guy approached her, but he kept his hands to himself until she moved closer, and even then he only touched her waist. He had sandy blond hair, scruffy facial hair, and tattoos running from under the sleeves of his t-shirt to his knuckles.

He yelled something in German at her. Nile shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t speak very much German,” she shouted back.

The man’s face lit up with understanding. “I said my name is Werner,” he told her in English. “Would you like to go sit in the lounge?”

“Nile,” she said, thumping her own chest with her hand. She looked over to find Nicky, who had attracted his own small crowd of admirers, and made eye contact before jerking her head in Werner’s direction. 

He grinned back at her and nodded. 

She and Werner ended up making out on one of the lounge couches. Dimly, Nile realized it’d been close to two years since she’d kissed anyone, but at the moment she felt too good to get emo about it. 

They must have been at it for awhile, because when they finally detached, Werner said, “The club closes soon. Do you want to come back with me?” 

“Back?”

“My flat.”

The answer was yes, yes she did, but her self-preservation instincts were too keen to let her fuck off into the night with some man she’d just met while she was rolling in an unfamiliar country. 

“Sorry, I need to find my friend,” she told him.

Werner took the hit graciously and even helped her re-locate Nicky on the dance floor. Outside the club, he kissed her goodbye before she and Nicky poured themselves into a cab that had seemingly materialized from thin air.

Nicky pressed his sweaty forehead against the cab window and peered at her from the corner of his eye. “Did you have fun?”

“Yeah,” Nile said, “probably too much.” Her leg was jiggling up and down in time to the music in the car. She couldn’t get it to stop.

His smile was benevolent. “Ah, that is all right.”

They made it back to the apartment without incident and sprawled out on the couch. Nile thought the high might be wearing off. 

Nicky sighed and she lifted her head to look at him. “What’s up?”

“I miss Joe, is all,” he said, running a hand up and down his own thigh.

Nile laughed. “Did you forget about the invention of the telephone? You know you could call him, right?”

Nicky bolted upright, eyes suddenly wild. He took her face in his hands and planted a wet kiss on her forward. “Brilliant, Nile,” he said. “I am going to go do that.” 

“Have fun,” she called over her shoulder. She heard the door to their room snick shut, and she had the sudden thought to get her earbuds in, stat. 


	4. getting back to my right mind

Nile woke up and felt like shit. Last night she’d burned through seven episodes of _The Office_ , feeling like her heart was going to beat out of her chest for no decipherable reason, while Nicky was probably having phone sex in the next room. 

After an hour of scrolling her phone, she felt semi-normal. She wasn’t exactly hungry, but she came out into the kitchen anyway, where she found Nicky peering into the mostly-empty can of coffee grounds.

“Oh damn, we forgot to get more,” Nile said.

Nicky lifted a shoulder with the grace of the recently-laid. “Ah, well, we were busy.” He set the can down. “Shall we got out? There is a cafe just around the corner.”

She threw on real clothes—about half of which were last night’s—and shared the sink with Nicky while they brushed their teeth. Nile spit and splashed some water on her face.

“I feel mostly normal,” she said while she waited for him to finish. “Is that on the immortality, or is ecstasy just not that scary?”

Nicky spit and straightened. “I think we have our condition to thank,” he told her. 

On the walk to the cafe, Nicky taught her how to ask for her latte with skim and whip in German. By the time it was their turn, she ordered smoothly enough that the barista didn’t bat an eye. 

The cafe had a variety of seating, several shelves of books, and a fat gray cat prowling around. Nile and Nicky sat in armchairs by the window and watched the people walking by. 

Nile yawned and sipped her latte. “How was Joe?” 

Nicky, who had a little bit of cappuccino foam on his upper lip, smiled like the cat who caught the mouse. “Very good. He says hello.” 

“What time was it in Belize when you called?”

“Hm, around eight or nine in the evening, I suppose. Luckily. I must thank the time difference for my pleasant reception.” He grinned like they were sharing a secret.

They ordered another round of espresso and split a scone. The cat hopped on Nicky’s lap and started sniffing at their plate. 

“Have you guys ever had pets?” Nile asked as Nicky distracted the cat from their crumbs with vigorous scratchies.

“Oh, yes, many times over the years. Several cats, dogs when we have kept a farm. Joe had a bird once, too.”

“Are we talking parakeet or parrot?”

Nicky’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “Parrot. He taught it to wolf-whistle. Unfortunately they live nearly as long as we do.” 

Nile laughed. She _psst-psst-psst_ ed for the cat’s attention, but it was smitten with Nicky. Kindred spirits, Nile thought.

After the cat wandered off, Nicky stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle. “What today?” he asked.

She considered it. “Anything near by worth checking out?”

“More museums. The lake, though it will be frozen.” He thought some more. “A church older than I am—the Fraumünster.”

“How old?”

“Eighth century, I think.”

“That’s crazy.” And Andy was even older. It still blew her mind. “How far is it?”

“Perhaps a ten minute walk.” 

Nile drained her latte and stood up. “Okay, let’s go.”

———

The cathedral was enormous. Nicky slid into a pew while she walked the length of the sanctuary, taking in the stained glass windows and trying her best to step quietly.

When she had her fill, she came to sit next to Nicky. He seemed lost in thought, and for a second Nile wondered if he was praying—but then he looked at her and smiled, like he could tell what was on her mind.

Joe didn’t usually pray five times a day, but Nile saw him performing Maghrib their first evening in Sìn Hồ and most days after. One day while they were cleaning the swords (because that was what a casual Thursday looked like for her now), she worked up the nerve to ask him about it.

“I am not as adherent as I once was, but no less faithful,” he told her. “I have been too blessed not to believe in the divine.” 

“And what about Nicky?” 

Joe had smiled at her. “That, I think, you’ll need to ask him.”

Sitting beside him now, Nile asked him, “Are you still Catholic?”

Nicky hummed. “I no longer attend mass, or confess. But. I do repent.”

She was about to ask “what for?” when she remembered he fought in a religious war before the Geneva Convention was a thing, and thought better of it.

Besides, there was something else on her mind.

“Andy’s pretty confident God doesn’t exist,” she said, voice low.

Nicky looked at her with so much compassion it made her chest feel tight. “None of us know, Nile,” he said gently. 

He took her hand in his. Nile looked down at where they were joined, Nicky’s skin so pale she could see blue veins. 

She thought about what he said the night they met, about destiny. When she looked up, he smiled. 

“If there is ever anything we can do to help you observe your faith, please tell us,” he told her. 

Nile suddenly imagined herself at her church back home, flanked by Nicky and Joe singing “Go Down Moses.” It seemed ridiculous, but she knew for her, they’d do it. 

She smiled at him. “I will.”

———

They killed two hours hunting down the best Biberli the city had to offer for Andy before heading home. 

Outside their door, Nicky froze and stayed her with a hand. He pulled a gun and Nile blinked.

“What the fuck, Nicky, have you been packing this whole time?” 

He shushed her with a motion of his hand and passed off the pastry bag. Nile took position behind him as he shouldered through the door.

“Hey,” said Andy from the couch. She was sipping a tumbler of something dark and cleaning a Rampuri. She glanced up and took in Nile’s expression and Nicky’s gun, which was already getting shoved back into his jeans.

“Joe,” Andy called as she leaned toward the bedroom, “didn’t you tell Nicky we were gonna be back early?”

Joe’s head popped out of the bedroom. He feigned innocence as Nicky met him halfway and wrapped his arms around Joe’s neck. “Must’ve slipped my mind.”

He slid his hands into the back pockets of Nicky’s Prada jeans and raised his eyebrows. “Are these new?”

“Nile got them for me.”

“Thanks a lot, Nile,” Andy said sarcastically as Joe beamed at her. 

“Hey, drop the attitude, we got you pastry,” Nile told Andy. She handed her the bag and Andy dug into it like a feral raccoon.   
  
“We got you new clothes, too,” Nicky told Joe. “Nile helped me pick out a shirt.” 

“Ah, and I will wear it and think of two of my favorite people,” Joe effused. “What else did you two get up to?

“We went clubbing,” Nile said.

“Yes, I gathered that from last night’s call.” Joe gave Nicky a peck on the mouth. 

“We took a little day trip to Bern,” Nicky said in a would-be-casual tone.

“And what did you do in—oh, dammit, Nicky. You took her to the Klee museum?”

“I am sorry, my love,” Nicky said gravely. “I will do whatever I must to be forgiven.” He winked at Nile. 

Andy rolled her eyes and started in on the meringues. 

Nicky wiggled out of Joe’s arms and made for the kitchen. “Come help me cook, my heart. Then you and Andy can tell us how the job went.” He looked back at Nile. “You will find us a movie to watch after we eat? Nile has excellent taste in cinema,” he said to Joe. 

She grinned and plopped down next to Andy. “Yep. I have the perfect one in mind.” 

Nicky was gonna love _Moulin Rouge_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who made it to the end of this very self-indulgent friendship fic! Title and chapter titles are, appropriately, from a Rico Nasty song. Ten points to anyone who noticed.


End file.
